A macaque colony was one of the reasons why I chose this city. I have always been curious about the coexistence of people and monkeys, and have seen many examples in Thailand, India, and Nepal.
This coexistence can be a challenge. Monkeys reproduce until they begin to starve, if people don't supply enough food, and then start conducting increasingly desperate raids on the city.
That's a title on NationThailand.com in 2018:
The mayor, Dr Somsak Tantiseranee said the monkeys could travel around to any spot by climbing on power poles and cables. They would then damage property and steal things from houses. He said the municipality has been trying to sterilise the monkeys but this could not be done effectively enough and the population has grown to about 4,000.
4000 monkeys in a city of 60.000 people!
During the pandemic, inner and international tourists disappeared from Songkhla, and monkeys, left without treats from travelers, began to starve. TheThaiger.com reported in 2020:
Monkeys have become so much of a problem in Songkhla that officials have decided to castrate them. The monkeys relied on food from tourists... ...but since there have been no tourists for months, the monkeys have made their way into the city looking for food.
What happened next? Did the monkeys survive the war against humans for resources? 😄 Instead of continuing my internet research, I decided to go to Songkhla and see the situation with my own eyes.
On March 7, 2025, I arrived in Songkhla and that's what I found out after a week of walks:
Map created by me on google.com/maps
The orange peanut on the map (or call it monkey testicles, up to you) is two hills serving as the monkey's stronghold, with Tangkuan Hill (the left testicle) as the capital city of this monkey kingdom. The lighter orange rectangle is the approximate area where the monkeys have forage expeditions in the afternoon. At 6 am, they may be braver since the city is less crowded with people. And the purple square is the city center of Songkhla.
Tangkuan Hill.
Here, let me share images from March 15, 2025, when I was following a group of macaques on their foraging expedition into the residential quarter.
I am saying "a foraging expedition" but I believe it's a tour motivated, first of all, by the habit of scouting lands and foraging as leisure rather than a necessity... Because Songkhla monkeys don't starve in 2025. There are two feeding stations for macaques. I saw a lot of food there, with dozens of monkeys around including many monkey youngsters who didn't want to eat bananas, watermelons, and pineapples (peeled, fresh, and juicy!) because they were too full...
So, the expedition...
The monkeys' foraging expedition (the red line) which I am describing in the post; the green hotel sign is where I stay. Light orange zone - an approximate area where monkeys have foraging expeditions in the late afternoon, purple - the city center. Map created by me on google.com/maps
At about 4:50 pm, I noticed a group of 30 or so monkeys walking along the wires in Sai Ngam Street. The macaques were visiting residential balconies in search of provisions; one of the beasts jumped on a cart of an lady street vendor and stole two cakes, causing a 20 baht (0.6$) loss. Another lady vendor armed herself with a stick to scare the bastards away from her food cart.
The sinister look of someone who robs old ladies and Buddhist temples
The group entered Wat Sai Ngam Buddhist temple and found plastic bags with garbage there. They tore apart the bags and started feasting, scattering trash all around.
But I had a feeling the monks placed these trash bags for the monkeys' joy, to make them feel victorious. A guess.
Because, when one of the animals started digging into a trash container ten meters away, a monk came with a stick to push the beast away.
One of the petty thieves and robbers. You can see tattoos on his arm which probably means he was sterilized. A proud veteran with microscopic nipples.
Despite many being sterilized, the macaques of Songkhla have many youngsters and kids.
The group was led by large males, grown on testosterone,
but significantly consisted of young monkeys as you see in the images.
And that's the reaction of a cat on this monkey parade:
As for people's reactions, they were kind to monkeys (and happy to see an excited foreigner with a camera), but ready to defend the line between these animals and their properties.
The most spectacular part was returning back to Tangkuan Hill. Monkeys had to cross a street with traffic and an abundance of dogs. Abundance, because that's the row of houses on the edge with the monkey forest; so, they all have dogs.
To cross it, the monkeys have two options: walking along the wires or running on the ground.
A group of monkeys before the crossing:
And that's crossing along the wires:
Hardships of momhood: only two thin wires over a 10-meter wide street; with a kid on her belly...
More exercises:
And at last back home:
People live in this house. But they have dogs, their property is safe. And, happily, monkeys don't party at night so... the people's sleep is good too.
Crossing the street on the ground:
Monkeys are afraid of this experience. No carelessness, they are running as if the car is about to hit, no matter how far the car is. Attention spans of macaques are awful, I believe they need this exaggerated fear just not to forget they are crossing a street with traffic.
Dogs don't immediately attack monkeys on the ground as, first of all, well-behaved dogs need a reason to attack (like entering their yard). If a dog well behaved towards people, it will be the same towards monkeys. Songkhla dogs are well-behaved, at least in the daylight.
Nevertheless, monkeys know that dogs are focused on them and avoid interaction.
Thai dogs are faster and much more maneuverable but monkeys can quickly start acting as a pack so neither dogs nor monkeys want this confrontation.
And here I was assaulted by a macaque:
Did I mention about awful attention spans of monkeys? This is an example. A mom forgot her baby - probably, she saw a piece of garbage and got excited and in a second was excited by something else, then a scandal, a fight, and a new excitement...
In the meantime, I noticed this monkey kid who found itself completely alone on the humans' side of the road. The thing started screaming as hell. I was shooting the kid when a female started to intimidate me by attempting to jump on me. She opened her mouth (a threat) and was looking at me with hatred. In response, I was intimidating her with my large photo camera, showing I wanted to hit her with it.
She had the right to this aggression, and I was retreating, moving backward, fearing that other monkeys could join the fight. Two motorbikes with locals stopped to help a foreigner but I showed them the thumb up and they left.
When I moved backward enough far, the female climbed up, took the screaming thing, and ran back to her group.
It was getting close to six o'clock. The monkeys were enjoying the evening coolness after a hot day and were preparing to return home to the forest on Tangkuan Hill.
More Southeast Asian stories to come, stay tuned! Check out my previous posts on my personal Worldmappin or Travelfeed map.
I took these images with a Nikkor 70-300mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on March 15, 2025, in Songkhla, Thailand.